To celebrate tipping over the 500,000 subscriber mark I decided to cast a real silver youtube play button… In miniature.
Casting a silver play button
Part 1 – melting the silver:
Silver melts at 1763 F or 961.8 C. So as long as you dont need to cast a lot of it, and you can stop too much heat escaping, a 1995 C or 3623 F hand held propane torch will melt silver quite easily. You can buy quartz crucibles quite cheaply on Amazon or eBay in various sizes and they work well. I seasoned the crucible first by heating it up and sprinkling some Borax onto it, then letting it cool down.
Casting rings and sand
Part 2 – making the impression
You can make your own interlocking casting flask, and you can make casting sand. And while I would consider making an interlocking flask, I couldn’t be bothered with the sand. Casting rings and Delft clay sand can also be bought on eBay, so I did. Now all I needed to do was create a blank wooden YouTube button to copy into my delft clay.
Casting molten silver
Part 3 – pouring the molten silver
With the two parts of the mold back together and the sprue’s cut, I decided to make sure I had more silver than was necessary to fill the button cavity in the mold. My theory was that the extra mass of the silver would help it stay molten longer, help push out any trapped air, and help fill the mold with the weight of the silver above assisting. I cast two buttons, they both turned out well.
Video guide to casting gold and silver
When looking for methods to cast silver I found Andrew Berry on YouTube. If you are interested in learning more about delft clay casting, you should check him out.
Small wooded picture frame
The only other tricky part of the build was miniature wooded frame to hold the small silver play button. I took some measurements of my real YouTube silver play button and scaled it down to a working scale. You can find the printable template for that here free of charge if you want it.
The above project is aimed at adults for education and entertainment purposes only, not to replicate. Anyone doing so takes full responsibility for their own actions.